RS

MEMBER DIARY

I hope Ohio conservatives are happy now

Repeat after me: Center-right beats far left.

I understand the frustration conservatives have with Mike DeWine. Really, I do. But it drives me crazy when conservatives refuse to see the reality of the playing field. Conservatives grumbled and attacked Mike DeWine with venom every chance they got. And I am confident a number of them refused to vote for him.

The Senate is one vote shy of the 60 needed to pass the economic stimulus bill. The last vote needed: Sen. Sherrod Brown.

Brown, D-Ohio, is currently in Ohio, attending the viewing for his mother, Emily Campbell Brown, who died Feb. 2. Brown will fly to Washington, D.C. to cast his vote tonight – in an airplane provided by the White House – then fly back to attend his mother’s funeral tomorrow.

Why the White House ride? Commercial airplanes wouldn’t accommodate the schedule, and the White House provided a plane because it’s official business.

As I have said until I am blue in the face: center right beats far left everytime. And yet many in Ohio seem to think otherwise.

This is the same attitude that contributed to Steve Stivers losing in his bid for Congress. If the GOP is to be a majority party in Ohio again it will have to reassemble the center-right coalition. Otherwise, the left is going to win by default.